Yes, I know the texture of your skin
without touching it.
Your left side
has gone somewhere else,
sending back messages,
electric flashes,
phantom signals,
like dolphins calling
each to each through a foggy sea.
Yes, I am here,
though now we invent
new ways to speak to each other;
our fears tumble underneath
our daily walk with each slow step.
I unpack boxes of books and wonder
where the mermaid sleeps,
and if the sun will rise tomorrow.
NOTE: This week's Sunday Scribblings's prompt is simply "yes". I'm not sure where the writing will go just now, for since Allen's mild stroke, all has changed. We've relocated to a new home on the west coast and happily are unpacking books we haven't seen for over two years, but I feel a great uncertainty about the future. Our new local library hasn't many books on recovering from a stroke, especially a mild one (for which we are daily grateful), we haven't seen the new neurologist yet, and although I'm working very slowly on Standing Stones, this new reality is my center.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
#197 Extreme . . .
Living in someone else's house,
I assume a second skin, eat
another person's food, sleep
in another person's bed,
feet off the end, covers tossed,
the heat set high.
The stairway creaks with losses mourned.
I could not name all those photos,
phone books to another time,
each cracked bowl comes
with its own story, Chinese willow,
the night all the dishes were thrown to the floor,
speakeasy times,
I methodically go through the refrigerator
check food labels and dates,
change the pages on calendars,
take out the garbage,
and fill my days
waiting for doctors,
watching snow fall.
When a crisis hits, nothing is more wonderful than family and friends. We're five days away from coming home and have stayed with family for the last four weeks as my dear husband recovers from a mild stroke. I feel my world has turned, pivoted, and changed irrevocably. Writing has always been my solace, but this is the first poem I've written since December 18. I would love to change what's happened, my confidence in the future is shaken, and even as I appreciate family support, I'm longing for our own place.
I assume a second skin, eat
another person's food, sleep
in another person's bed,
feet off the end, covers tossed,
the heat set high.
The stairway creaks with losses mourned.
I could not name all those photos,
phone books to another time,
each cracked bowl comes
with its own story, Chinese willow,
the night all the dishes were thrown to the floor,
speakeasy times,
I methodically go through the refrigerator
check food labels and dates,
change the pages on calendars,
take out the garbage,
and fill my days
waiting for doctors,
watching snow fall.
When a crisis hits, nothing is more wonderful than family and friends. We're five days away from coming home and have stayed with family for the last four weeks as my dear husband recovers from a mild stroke. I feel my world has turned, pivoted, and changed irrevocably. Writing has always been my solace, but this is the first poem I've written since December 18. I would love to change what's happened, my confidence in the future is shaken, and even as I appreciate family support, I'm longing for our own place.
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